Growth of $RuO2$ nanorods in reactive sputtering

The synthesis of $RuO2$ nanorods with reactive sputtering was demonstrated in this work. The synthesis process is very much like the metal organic chemical vapor deposition, except that $RuO3$ generated with reactive sputtering under high oxygen-to-argon flow ratio $(>5SCCM∕15SCCM)$ (SCCM denotes cubic centimeter per minute at STP) and high substrate temperature $(>300°C)$ is used in place of the metal organic precursor. $RuO2$ nanorods tend to grow steadily with constant aspect ratio $(∼27)$ and the field-emission characteristics appear very sensitive to their spatial distribution.